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DECISION TIME

Every year, as one cohort of incoming students is accepted and another crop starts filling out applications, colleges across the country calculate one last measurement of their admission season success: the yield.

The admission yield percentage reflects the number of accepted students who have placed deposits, a definitive indicator of the institution they have decided to attend. With that data in hand, colleges also report how many, if any, of their wait-list applicants will be offered admission.

We reached out recently to several dozen colleges to find out how many of their accepted applicants had placed deposits and how much those colleges intended to use their wait lists. The preliminary figures, which will be updated as more data arrive, are included in the chart above. (To compare this year’s cohort to previous years’, click on the tabs of the worksheet above. You may also view a printer-friendly version of the chart.)Read more…

The hardest part about choosing a college was making sure a school’s brand name did not become a factor in my decision.

When I left the Yale University campus in Connecticut, I knew where I was going to be spending the next four years of my life. Then I flew back home to Kansas and started to think about everything I had experienced at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

The more I thought about it, the harder it was for me to commit to Yale. I was leaning toward Amherst, mainly because of financial aid. I was a bit surprised when Amherst offered more aid than Yale. So I appealed Yale’s initial offer, and the Ivy League school ended up reconsidering and matching Amherst’s financial aid package.

With finances no longer a factor, I continued down my list of things to look for in a college.

I thought my decision would be much tougher to make, but as time went on and I began to ask students about their experiences at both colleges, the decision became clearer.Read more…

Just a few weeks ago, many of you gathered around a virtual kitchen table on The Choice blog to share the admission decisions of the colleges to which you applied. Since then, you’ve had until May 1 to choose a college and submit an enrollment deposit.

The National Candidates Reply Date is here, seniors. How did you make your final college decision?

Whether you are excited about where you’re going to college, or just relieved from the burden of having to choose, we’d like to know about the biggest factor that helped you make the choice.

Was your college choice a close call or a no-brainer? Did you base your decision on affordability, academic fit or some combination of the two? Were you swayed by an institution’s prestige? Did someone help you make up your mind, did statistics help you decide, or did you rely on a gut feeling?

We hope you’ll share your thought process with other readers of The Choice, so that we might all have a better sense of what really happens when decision time comes.

College students and graduates are also welcome to weigh in, of course. It wasn’t long ago that you, too, had to make the choice. Perhaps your experience will help someone else.

So, tell us: How did you choose your college? What advice would you give to future college applicants who will one day have to choose?

Scott Anderson is a former college counselor and the director of outreach for the Common Application.

When two friends were expecting their first child, they were very private about the name they had chosen for the baby. “We want our daughter to be the first person to hear it,” they would tell anyone who asked. It was a beautiful, touching sentiment.

It was also a load of hooey.

The mother was far more candid with close friends. She and her husband simply didn’t want to invite anyone to have an opinion about their choice. “It’s a lot easier to hold a baby in your arms and say, ‘We want you to meet our daughter Rose’ than it is to say, ‘We’re thinking of naming our daughter Rose.'”

Their bet: People would have to be pretty oblivious to social cues to offer their two cents about an important, personal decision after that decision had already been made with great care.

Related

This week, the last of the high school seniors who have yet to make up their minds about where they’re going to college in the fall, will finally put their deposit check in the mail and end the college search process that for some began years ago.

So much time, effort and money goes into picking the right college, but then too many students fail to engage in the process that follows: getting ready for their first year and figuring out what they want to get out of the entire college experience. It’s why some 400,000 students drop out of college each year and why one-third of students now transfer at least once before earning a degree.

One of the decisions you’ll need to make early on — if you haven’t already — is picking a major. Choosing what you want to do for the rest of your life is fraught with anxiety for many students, so you’re not alone if you have no idea what to choose.Read more…

If you are a high school senior who has yet to decide where you’re going to college, you are most likely joining many families who are heading into a weekend of tough decisions.

As the May 1 deadline of making a college choice approaches, I want to call your attention to some resources at The Times that may help you make your decision.

Guidance Office: Answers to Your Questions on Making the Final College Decision

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Mark Kantrowitz and Marie BighamCredit

In The Choice blog’s recent Decision-Time Q. and A., Marie Bigham, a former college admissions officer and veteran college counselor, and Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on financial aid, answered readers’ questions about comparing financial aid offers and deciding where to enroll in the blog’s virtual Guidance Office, a forum for college applicants and their families seeking expert advice.

I invite you to visit or revisit the five-part series, in which the panelists offered advice about college fit, comparing value, weighing prestige, and paying for college:Read more…

The end of April is in sight, and this can only mean one thing: the National Candidate Reply Date is approaching.

On May 1, accepted students must notify one college of their intent to enroll by submitting a deposit. As such, high school seniors are jet-setting around the country to attend “yield events” at the colleges to which they were admitted. After months, nay years, of efforts to impress colleges, the tables have turned and students have the opportunity to be courted by my colleagues in admissions.

For many students, the college choice represents the first time that they have had to make a weighty decision. Each individual reacts to this reality in his or her own way. For some, the perceived grandeur of this selection is almost paralyzing. Others set about methodically, determining the pros and cons of each institution as though a single rubric and maybe a bit of calculus will facilitate the task.

No matter what process you select to aid your discernment, the following might be helpful to consider:

Look Beyond the Numbers

When it comes to college admissions, rankings abound and data on attrition, graduation rates, graduate school acceptance and student satisfaction are available in a single click.

Stare at the numbers long enough and it will become apparent that every school is in the top ten by some equation. In fact, one could choose a college based on the documented food quality alone.

After receiving a dream acceptance, I have chosen to enroll at Cornell University. It offered me an excellent financial aid package and has a highly reputed computer science department.

In the second week of April, Cornell hosted a celebratory luncheon for Tata Scholars at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai.

My parents and I flew down to Mumbai to meet the other Tata Scholars and Lee Melvin, the associate vice provost for enrollment at Cornell. On the evening we arrived, we were treated to dinner at an expensive restaurant. The next afternoon, the formal luncheon took place. It was informative and enjoyable.

On the flight back home, I could not help but calculate the cost of the weekend. Although it was very generous of Cornell and the Tata program to host the all-expenses-paid luncheon, I cringed a little when I realized that this one weekend cost as much as I will need to earn from my on-campus job during freshman year.

When I shared this thought with my parents and friends, they were quick to rebuke me for overthinking college finances.Read more…

As part of an admissions practice that seems to be on the rise, many of this year’s admitted college applicants have learned that they must wait until spring 2014 to enroll, my colleague Ariel Kaminer reports:

Back in 2001, when U.S.C. started doing it, Timothy Brunold, the director of admissions, said he assumed the university was a pioneer. Now the list includes, among others, Skidmore College, Hamilton College, Brandeis University, the University of Miami, Northeastern University, Elon University in North Carolina and Middlebury College (which actually beat U.S.C. to the punch by a few decades).

They all have their own variation on the theme. Some, like Middlebury, in Vermont, allow students to request second-semester admissions; some make the decision for the students. Hamilton, in Clinton, N.Y., does not enroll students until they arrive on campus in the spring; Skidmore, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and Northeastern, in Boston, enroll them right away but direct them to spend their fall semester at a designated program abroad.

But all are motivated by the same basic arithmetic: between freshman-year attrition and junior-year abroad programs, campus populations drop off after the first few months of college each year. “With the economy the way it is, they need to be doing what they can to get tuition income,” said Scott G. Chrysler Jr., a college counselor in Louisiana who is active in the national group’s admissions practices committee. “An empty seat is not generating any income.”

Some students have made the best of their second-semester admissions, as Ms. Kaminer reports, but a thick envelope with delayed gratification is also sure to cause some disappointment.

What are your thoughts about the practice? Do you know someone who has received such an offer? Please join the discussion in the comments box below.

The Choice has invited Marie Bigham, a former college admissions officer and veteran college counselor, and
Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert, to answer your questions about comparing financial aid offers and deciding where to enroll in the blog’s virtual Guidance Office, a forum for college applicants and their families seeking expert advice.

The moderated Q. and A. session, which began on Monday, concludes with this post.

In this fifth and final installment of answers, the panelists respond to questions about replacing need-based aid with merit aid, the benefits of the International Baccalaureate program, how to calculate your expected family contribution, and options for undecided students.

Some questions, and answers, below have been edited, including for length and style. — Tanya Abrams

Replacing Need-Based Aid With Merit Aid

Q.

My daughter has just accepted an offer of admission to a college that gave her a large, no-loan, financial aid package including both merit-based and need-based aid. She is also a National Merit finalist, and the college is a sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship. We learned through a call to the financial aid office that they will give her the National Merit Scholarship, but at the same time will reduce her need-based aid by the same amount. Her total award would be no different, therefore, with or without the National Merit Scholarship. I feel that this is reasonable; she however, sees it differently. Can you help us make sense of this? Is it common practice, and is it fair?